Remembering Woodward

A deadly night of tornadoes across northern Texas and southern Oklahoma on this date in 1947. One supercell thunderstorm produced six twisters along a 221 mile corridor. About 5:45 p.m., a tornado touched down near White Deer, Texas, where it derailed twenty-one cars of a Santa Fe freight train. It grazed the towns of Pampa and Miami, Texas. Moving along the Santa Fe line, the tornado trained its sights on Glazier, Texas. Eight people perished in the tiny town where only one building was left standing. Next in the path of the deadly storm was Higgins, TX, where twenty-four people were killed.

The storm raced into Oklahoma, where it fell with hellish fury on the town of Shattuck, leaving twenty people dead there. The death-dealing funnel was saving its greatest wrath for the town of Woodward, which lay unwittingly in its path. As the tornado approached Woodward, it had swelled in size to two miles wide and was moving at up to 70 mph. The twister leveled one-third of the town and was followed by a major fire, killing 116 people. This made it the deadliest tornado ever in the history of Oklahoma.

The Woodward tornado is one of the widest in U.S. history, and indeed may be the widest because it is difficult to determine the extent of the damage path over the sparsely populated area. A total of 169 people were killed and 980 injured on the tragic night.

Captain Roy L. Thrush, a pilot for TWA, was flying over northwestern Oklahoma when he heard radio calls for help from the ground in the tornado-stricken areas of Gage and Woodward. All ground communications had been wiped out and the outside world was unaware of the victims’ plight. He relayed emergency requests for doctors, nurses, and medical supplies to Oklahoma City.